His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel on Friday addressed the pilgrims coming from all across Romania to take part in the annual procession with holy relics on the streets of Bucharest stressing that ‘the joy of the communion of Saints is offered to prayerful pilgrims.’
The Patriarch noted that the presence of the holy relics of the three Romanian Saints in Bucharest is ‘a great blessing’ for hierarchs, clerics, monastics, and pilgrims.
‘Saint Demetrios the New,’ whose feast day will be marked on Sunday, ‘was so tender and merciful in his soul, that years in a row he repented and wept because he accidentally stepped on a baby bird and killed it.’
The patriarch also mentioned St Philothea of Arges highlighting her example of ‘merciful love for the poor, even with the price of suffering and death.’
‘The luminous portrait of Saint Dionysius the Bishop of Cetatea Alba,’ His Beatitude noted, ‘remained in the devotion of the people as one of the most beloved Romanian clergymen of Bessarabia in the 20th century.’
Saint Dionysius Erhan will be officially declared a saint on Sunday during a canonization ceremony that will be attended by a delegation of the Metropolis of Chisinau (Moscow Patriarchate).
In his speech, Patriarch Daniel recalled that all three Saints whose relics were placed for veneration earlier on Friday were born and raised in villages, ‘where the most useful virtues were cultivated, including true faith, humility, kind-heartedness, sacrifice, patience and hope.’
‘The three saints have in common humility, mercy, the saintliness of life and the holy gift of healing spiritual and physical infirmities, being called by the people wonderworkers or healers,’ the patriarch shared.
Ending his speech, the patriarch congratulated the pilgrims for coming to Bucharest and offered his prayers for their health and wisdom, peace and joy, support in their families ‘in order to grow in faith and fraternal love, in saintliness and good deeds, unto the glory of the Most Holy Trinity, the joy of the Saints and the gaining of salvation.’
Photography courtesy of Basilica.ro Archive
